It is no exaggeration to say that I have many recipe books. I love to cook, but I also love to just lie in the bath and watch recipes that I know I’ll never make because they’re so complicated and require too many obscure ingredients. . So, after lovingly flipping through the pages a few times while imagining myself whipping up these culinary masterpieces in another world, the book usually ends up back on the shelf, sad, forgotten, and gathering dust. I’m wearing it.
But there are new recipes in my house, and I haven’t even seen the recipe books disappearing on my bookshelf, even though I’ve only had them for about a month. Day!
If you’re a member of a Facebook group Australian meal $10, You can see all the excitement surrounding group creator Chelsea Goodwin’s book $10 Meals with Chelsea, which is scheduled to be released on April 23rd.rd 2024. If you’re not a member of the group, visit now. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
As a mother of three teenagers, cost of living pressures are never more evident than when it comes to grocery shopping. Everything has gone up in price. It’s not unusual for the four of us to spend over $350 on groceries while her husband is away on his own. It’s even higher when her husband is home. So when I received an email from Penguin about Chelsea’s upcoming book, I was eager to find out more and secure a copy of the book review. (Yeah, I’m fully aware that I’m a lucky bitch, and some of you hate me right now!)
In my excitement after receiving this book, the kids and I chose a few things to try without following the weekly plan. If you’ve never tried Chelsea’s Buttermilk Chicken, it’s going to rock your world!!! And you’ve never seen meatballs fly off the plate as fast as Chelsea’s Vietnamese Meatballs! there is no!!!
Anyway, after a few random recipes I flipped through the book and chose week 5 and decided to follow the plan and grocery list.
The meal plan for week 5 looks like this:
Sunday: Beef burrito bowl
Monday: Chicken paprikash
Tuesday: Black pepper beef
Wednesday: Rice noodle nachos
Thursday: Vegetable tagine
Friday: Chicken Pad See You
Saturday: Leftover vegetable tagine
As you can see, a week’s worth of meals at the grocery store came to $119.74. I could have reduced this amount, but I decided to buy more meat to make a slightly larger meal. Because I love having leftovers to eat after the kids get home from school, work, or late night sports. I also swapped out the bone-in chicken for breast meat, as my family tends to prefer to just pop everything into their mouths without worrying about bones and stuff. I was pleasantly surprised at the price considering I had also restocked the shelves at this store with some spices and also had some pantry staples like oyster sauce and white wine vinegar.
Of course, we also had to buy other essentials for breakfast and lunch, such as bread and milk, but the whole store came to about $185.
When I saw the items lined up like this, I was skeptical about whether there would be enough for one week or whether the quantity was enough, but I was looking forward to finding out.
beef burrito bowl
The slow cooked beef was amazing, so flavorful and I had lots left over to make Rice Noodle Bean Nachos later in the week, so it was an easy Wednesday night dish!
My family is big fans of burrito bowls. Because you can easily include all the things you like and leave out the things you don’t.
Oh yeah, I also cheated and bought guacamole dip instead of buying an avocado because 1. I couldn’t trust the shoppers at Coles to choose something good for me. 2. The soul-crushing feeling of opening the package and realizing you’ve just bought $4 worth of rotten brown mush. I couldn’t bear the disappointment.
verdict: Unanimously 5 out of 5 stars!
Chicken Paprikash
As I mentioned before, I used chicken breast, which made my shopping experience a little more expensive than I expected.
verdict: I loved this, but the kids only gave it 3.5 stars even though there were no leftovers on their plates.
black pepper beef
This is also a meal that will likely be on high rotation. Instead of using part of the beef blade roast for this, I bought a beef shoulder roast so I could make a larger batch.
The flavor was so rich and the meat from the marinade was so tender.
verdict: Easily 5 stars!
rice noodle nachos
The slow-cooked Mexican beef was even better by Wednesday – if that’s possible! My family loves this type of meal, so I was confident we’d find our next winner. I’ll add one point to this for convenience. The hard work was already done (and by hard work I actually mean throwing the meat, spices, etc. into the slow cooker and letting it work its magic for about 8 hours!), so I had to do it. The only thing that wasn’t was throwing everything together. . Voila!
verdict: The kids say it’s so good that they haven’t had to eat any spaghetti bolognese yet this week, giving this meal another 5 stars.
vegetable tagine
I went completely bad with this and threw in some turkey mince that I had in the fridge and wanted to use it up. Because 1. That’s outrageous, and 2. One of the sons is inclined to think it’s wrong. whole A meal if it does not contain meat.
It tasted great and if you double the amount you won’t have to cook on Saturday. Thank you, Chelsea! genius!
verdict: It’s okay to eat every day, but the kids gave it 4 stars.
chicken pad see u
oh my god! That’s all I want to say. You must try this recipe. It’s really good and very easy.
verdict: My kids are in awe of my cooking skills, but I’m still confused as to why I didn’t finish my half-baked bolognese this week, just because everyone eats it and it’s quick and easy. I would give it 5 stars or more if I could.
Week two went well and every meal was greeted with the same enthusiasm.
- Vietnamese meatballs with Asian coleslaw
- Gingy Chicken Tray Bake
- meatball banh mi
- buttermilk fried chicken (I didn’t even have a chance to take a photo of this as it disappeared so quickly!)
- vegetable massaman curry
- Stir-fried pork noodles (Another new family favorite!)
- vegetable massaman curry
It only cost me $98.15 at the store because I didn’t need to buy as many pantry essentials as I already had. Victory!
I used bone-in chicken thigh cutlets again instead of chicken breast, and since I had leftover Vietnamese meatballs, I bought more pork mince, so it may have been even cheaper.
Anyway, this should give you a little idea of how this recipe book is perfect for families’ stomachs and budgets. The recipe is delicious, but not difficult to make. Ingredients are easily available at your local supermarket, and many of the groceries can be used multiple times in other recipes, so it’s worth stocking up and seeing your weekly food bill go down.
One thing I find annoying is having to choose what to eat every day. It just adds to the mental strain on me…which is probably why spaghetti bolognese is so high in rotation. I love that all my meals are already planned. All I have to do is follow Chelsea’s step-by-step instructions and in no time, dinner will be on the table and I’ll be trying something new and delicious.
Chelsea also includes substitution swaps and the recipes are all very adaptable if you want to include or omit something to suit your family’s tastes.
I’ve been raving about this book to everyone I’ve met this month, and I have no hesitation in saying it’s the best recipe book I own. In the few weeks since I got it, I’ve used it more than I’ve used the other products combined. If you’re looking for ways to save money on groceries and create new family favorites, this book is well worth the money.
Disclosure: I was gifted this book for the purpose of providing an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.
